ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

GREG SMITH

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP)—College-bound Iowa students posted the highest overall ACT scores among all neighboring states except those in Wisconsin, whom they tied, while the region exceeded the national average score.

The 21,701 high school students in Iowa, or 68.5 percent of all seniors, who took the college entrance test had a composite score of 21.8. That represents an increase of 0.2 percent from a year ago and is the highest score since 1990 when Iowans also had a 21.8 composite score.

Wisconsin students kept pace for the second year, tying Iowa at 21.8 and matching the same percentage increase from last year.

Illinois students had an overall score of 21, up slightly from last year. Illinois students who did not take core courses scored 19.6, compared to the 22.8 average composite of those who did.

Core courses include at least four years of English and three each of mathematics, natural sciences and social studies.

The national composite score on the ACT Assessment, one of the nation’s primary college entrance exams, was 20.7, up 0.1 percent from 1992. It marks the first increase in more than five years.

‘‘We attribute that to better preparation on the part of students. The message we’ve been sending out for the last several years is students need to take more courses, the kind that prepare them for college—more English, more math, more science,’‘ ACT spokesman Kelley Hayden said Monday.

‘‘Each year, students have been doing that and I think it’s catching up now,’‘ he said.

Around the rest of the Midwest, Minnesota students scored a composite 21.6 on the ACT tests in English, math, reading and science while South Dakota and Nebraska posted identical 21.2 scores on the tests that are graded on a scale of 1 to 36.

Hayden, meanwhile, deflected criticism from the FairTest organization in Cambridge, Mass., a watchdog of the standardized testing industry that includes ACT and SAT. ACT is an acronym for American College Testing while SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test.

The SAT’s are considered more narrowly focussed on math, reading and language skills while the ACT’s are considered a broader test of high school mastery.

Bob Schaeffer, public education director at FairTest, said ACT is trying to ‘‘cover up’‘ the growing difference between male scores and female scores.

‘‘Gender bias in standardized testing has been quite a major issue. They don’t even mention it,’‘ Schaeffer said.

Males who took the ACT exam had a composite score of 21, up 0.1 percent from a year ago, while scores for females remained at 20.5 for the second straight year.

‘‘Young women earned lower scores on the ACT than young men, but they get higher grades in college when matched course by course,’‘ Schaeffer said. ‘‘So either all the colleges are wrong in saying which gender is more capable of doing college level work or the test is wrong,’‘ he said.

Hayden said Iowa City-based ACT was ‘‘not trying to ignore or hide the gender gap.’‘

‘‘We do have a male-female profile, but in a press release you can only focus on a couple of things and it was the ethnic minority group issue that was of interest to us on this particular occasion,’‘ Hayden said.

Schaeffer also said the tests ‘‘are not terribly valid at all’‘ and should not be used by educators as a the means to accept or reject students’ enrollment applications.

He said more than 100 colleges, including the Oregon State University system and the California State College system, don’t require standardized test scores.

Hayden said the ACT test was a ‘‘valid indicator’‘ of the scholastic preparation a student has had but ‘‘that these tests should never be used alone.’‘

‘‘We think people ought to use the test score in combination with the grade point average, class ranking and letters of recommendation and samples of students’ work,‘’ he said.